In the field of endless conveyors, conveyors are known that are formed with pivotally mounted links having a plurality of ribs at the upper part thereof, which are longitudinal to the movement direction of the conveyor and define the resting surface for the items carried thereon. At the outgoing end of the conveyor, end elements are present which consist of fixed fingers to be inserted between the link ribs in order to create an extension of the resting surface of the conveyor capable of receiving the carried items. The outgoing items are then heaped up against each other by sliding on the fixed fingers and the following surface forming an extension thereof.
In order to reduce shocks and side thrusts on the outgoing items at the conveyor end, conveyors have also been proposed in which the end elements consist of dragging fingers followed by rollers for facilitating the sliding of items collected by said fingers. However the mounting of said elements provided with dragging fingers alone or with rollers as well is not modular, which means that it is rather difficult to pass from one arrangement to the other depending for example on the goods to be carried, as the various elements are not readily interchangeable. In addition, as it is necessary to provide completely different elements for the above two solutions, costs are higher and storage problems arise.
Essentially, it has not been hitherto possible to use the same base elements for achieving outgoing ends provided with rollers or with a mere sliding surface, through simple assembling operations.